1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to computer networks. More specifically, this invention relates to tracking and managing access to informational resources on the World Wide Web.
2. Background Art
The development of the EDVAC computer system of 1948 is often cited as the beginning of the computer era. Since that time, computer systems have evolved into extremely sophisticated devices, and computer systems may be found in many different settings. The widespread proliferation of computers prompted the development of computer networks that allow computers to communicate with each other. With the introduction of the personal computer (PC), computing became accessible to large numbers of people. Networks for personal computers were developed that allow individual users to communicate with each other.
Computer systems typically include operating system software that controls the basic function of the computer, and one or more software applications that run under the control of the operating system to perform desired tasks. For example, a typical IBM Personal Computer may run the OS/2 operating system, and under the control of the OS/2 operating system, a user may execute an application program, such as a word processor. As the capabilities of computer systems have increased, the software applications designed for high performance computer systems have become extremely powerful.
Other changes in technology have also profoundly affected how we use computers. For example, the widespread proliferation of computers prompted the development of computer networks that allow computers to communicate with each other. With the introduction of the personal computer (PC), computing became accessible to large numbers of people. Networks for personal computers were developed to allow individual users to communicate with each other. In this manner, a large number of people within a company could communicate with other computer users in a convenient and efficient manner.
One significant computer network that has recently become very popular is the Internet. The Internet grew out of the modern proliferation of computers and networks, and has evolved into a sophisticated worldwide network of computer systems linked together by web pages that collectively make up the "World-Wide Web", or WWW. A user at an individual PC (i.e., workstation) that wishes to access the WWW typically does so using a software application known as a web browser. A web browser makes a connection via the WWW to other computers known as web servers, and receives information from a web server that is displayed on the user's workstation. Information displayed for the user is typically organized into pages that are constructed using a specialized language called Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). The user can navigate to any page by inputting the address or Uniform Resource Locator (URL) into the web browser. URLs are simply formatted text strings which identify the location of a WWW resource.
Several web browsers have been developed which allow users to traverse the pages of the WWW and store "place holders" to represent the URLs of commonly visited sites or pages. Similar to links, these place holders automatically navigate the user back to frequently visited sites with a simple point and click of the mouse. In the commonly used Netscape Navigator web browser, these place holders are referred to as "bookmarks" and are displayed on a Bookmarks Menu located on the main screen of the web browser. Similarly, Microsoft Internet Explorer also allows the user to define place holders which are referred to as "favorites." Since it would be impractical and impossible to list the exact term used by each web browser to designate these place holders, this specification uses the term "bookmark" to broadly signify all present and future terms used to describe place holders which are capable of automatically retrieving URLs and directing a web browser to the desired site.
Another advantage of using bookmarks is the ability to customize a web browser for an individual user. Each web user can personalize his or her Bookmarks Menu by simply navigating their web browser to a commonly visited WWW site, clicking on the Bookmarks Menu and then clicking on the "Add a Bookmark" tool, or some similar tool. This causes the web browser to automatically add a bookmark for that site to the Bookmarks Menu. The newly defined bookmark then appears on the Bookmarks Menu as either the name of the site or the URL address of the site. The user can easily navigate back to any bookmarked site by simply clicking on the appropriate bookmark listed in the Bookmarks Menu. While the use of bookmarks has simplified the use of the WWW, deciding whether or not to bookmark a site is a decision not to be taken lightly.
Typically, when a user is browsing the WWW to locate information for a specific purpose, they will bookmark a site that contains any information that the user finds valuable. Later, during the session, if the user finds a new site that contains even better information relating to the topic of interest, they will add that new site to the list of bookmarks as well. As can be imagined, over the course of a single browsing session, the user may locate and create bookmarks for a large number of sites which contain similar information. However, not all sites are created equal. Therefore, partway through a browsing session the user may discover a site that was bookmarked during the early part of the search is now less desirable or completely useless when compared with the newer, more up-to-date sites that have been bookmarked. This will mean that the user will probably need to go back and remove the older, less valuable bookmarks from the bookmark list at a later time so that the bookmark file is not overloaded with low-quality sites. Ultimately, deciding which sites to keep and deleting the undesirable sites can become very time-consuming.
Knowing that better sites may be found later and not wishing to spend an inordinate amount of time deleting less desirable bookmarks, the user may choose a different strategy which leads to yet a different problem. During the early stages of a browsing session, the user may come across a site which, while promising, is not quite what the user is looking for. Since the user is convinced that better sites must exist elsewhere on the WWW, they will choose not to bookmark the current site and will move on in search of "greener pastures" in an attempt to reduce the number of redundant or less valuable sites that must be removed later. However, after a sometimes fruitless attempt to find a better site, the user may come to the inescapable conclusion that the previously discarded site was, in fact, the best site or was the only site that had the desired information. However, since the user did not bookmark the earlier site, they have no way of easily returning to the previously visited site and may spend many precious hours, sometimes in vain, tying to rediscover the previously visited site that contained the desired information.
These two related problems make the decision to bookmark a site or not to bookmark a site more challenging than it should be. A user would like to simply find the best sites and bookmark them accordingly. However, since it is impossible to know beforehand which sites will turn out to be the best sites, the user must either bookmark every possible relevant site, and go back and delete the unwanted sites at a later time, or take a chance by not bookmarking a potentially promising site and risk not being able to find it again at a later date. While this current approach is serviceable, it is obviously less than ideal. No matter which course of action a user pursues, there will almost certainly be an element of inefficiency or frustration introduced into the process. In fact, the search for previously visited sites and the constant marking and unmarking of less desirable bookmarks can both become unnecessarily counterproductive and time-consuming for the average user.
As the number of WWW users and the number of useful sites rapidly expand, it will become increasingly important for a web user to be able to use bookmarks to effectively access desired information. Without improvements in the present system of managing bookmark information, the process of selecting optimal bookmark files and maintaining ready access to the most relevant sites for individual WWW user will be less effective than otherwise possible.